Dream Date (-00:02)
“...and they use glitches and exploits to finish without really playing the game. It is basically cheating”.
“Yes, and you know this because…?” asked Celestia.
Luna had cancelled all of Celestia’s midday meetings (on her behalf, violently), summoned the royal guard, and had dragged her into Celestia’s private study, in the middle of one of her petitions about funding an orphanage, to talk about… this.
Luna’s eyes were bloodshot and she was drooling everywhere. Celestia was concerned and confused.
“Have you forgotten, sister?”, Luna shook her head, spraying spittle, “I was a Gamer Girl back in 2013. I know all about speedrunners and their evil desire to ruin videogames for everypony”.
“And they want to... kill me?”
“Their depravity knows no bounds. They would just clip through them anyway”, she added.
Celestia sighed.
“Very well. I’ll remain in the castle while you investigate. But please get some sleep Lulu. I think I see a supernova in your mane”.
Luna blanched and turned her head sideways in embarrassment.
“We– I will. And I will get to the bottom of this, sister. Mark my words!”
She turned on her hooves and took flight, crashing directly into the study’s door.
“After a little nap”, she said, through gritted teeth.
While Rarity tried to calm the panicked filly and colt, Twilight took it upon herself to ‘escort’ their strange intruder back to her castle.
He didn’t seem evil. Just… very, very weird. And not just the whole ‘I’m a human from another dimension thing’. That she could almost understand. She had a whole mirror in her basement that did exactly that. No, weird as in blasting himself with boxes, phasing through walls, using Lyra as a springboard, if what Applejack said was true (and she was fairly confident that AJ wouldn’t lie her). Maybe it was something to do with the dimensional transfer process? Oh, where was Starswirl’s Dimensional Treatise Vol. 4 when she needed it…
Maybe she should just ask him for another copy. He did owe her a lot of favours.
“I completely forgot to mention this,” said the human-unicorn, “but right here is where Pinkie would jump us with the party invite if we hadn’t glitched into her room and triggered it early. It’s the same length either way, but since we’re waiting for Applejack it makes sense to just do it then.”
“And I think it’s time to close the donation incentives, right?” said Gage.
“Lets hear ‘em. But if Luna’s in the lead I’m closing them instantly.”
“It looks like Twilight is still in the lead with 38k, but Luna is definitely close– Oh, just received a donation I think you’ll want to hear,” said the announcer.
“We have a whopping $10000 from Rarity! It says: ‘My little sister and her coltfriend–”
Coltfriend? Someone’s role-playing a li-i-ittle too hard in the dono messages, thought PonyRunner.
“...have been watching the marathon all day, so I thought I’d donate to remind them to pick up after themselves when they’re done, and do try not to eat so much popcorn Sweetie, you’ll spoil your appetite! I couldn’t choose between all the options, so I think I’ll let the runner choose what he wants.”
There it was.
“And runners choice is, I believe, Luna!” said the announcer, ‘which puts Luna in the lead with 42 thousand dollars! Thank you so much for your very generous donation”.
“Close it! Close the bid war! We’re done!”
“And who am I to say no? The winner of the best pony incentive is… Princess Luna!”.
PonyRunner sighed with relief. “Whoever you are, you have just saved the run.”
The journey back to Twilight’s castle went by quicker than normal. Surprisingly so. Every so often, Twilight felt something hit her horn, but whenever she looked up, there was nothing there. A stray rain-cloud? She was positive she wasn’t teleporting... was she? Her human-unicorn (humicorn?) seemed to be keeping up at least.
She flung open the door with her magic.
“This is where you’ll be staying, while the girls and I figure out what’s up!”
Most ponies who saw her crystal castle were, at the very least, interested. Usually they were impressed, or in awe, or one of many other, similar emotions. Heck, she still found herself craning her neck to take in the sights – in particular, the strange geometry of the ‘tree trunk’ never failed to impress her. Almost as if the castle interior was in a competently different place, and the door simply ‘loaded it in’! Now that she thought about it, a lot of the buildings in Ponyville felt like that.
The human-turned-pony, however, seemed much more interested in one of the supply closets. The ones Starlight and Spike kept opening and throwing junk into, until they collapsed on the next pony who opened them.
Which was precisely what happened to her unicorn guest when he opened it.
She picked the whole mess up in her magic and quickly sorted everything back onto its proper shelf.
“No no, the guest rooms are this way. I know, I know, ‘the doors all look the same’. I’m working on a floor plan and labelling system, but world ending disasters just keep getting in the way, you know how it is”, Twilight said, giving him a knowing look.
He was still holding a bucket.
“I need this for a clip later”.
“… O-o-okay…”
She pushed open the door to the guest room. It wasn’t exactly ‘modestly sized’, but it was a fair sight smaller than some of the other, more luxurious rooms of the castle. This room, however, was special in other ways. Ways pertaining to… ‘security and observation’. If somepony wanted to, oh, say, secretly observe and study an alien lifeform without them knowing, they may or may not have chosen this particular room for that purpose.
“If you need anything, or if you recover your memories, just ring this bell,” which she dinged with her magic, “to let me know!”
She frowned.
“You… do have amnesia, right? We established that at Rarity’s… didn’t we?”
“Chat, I have no idea what the plot is. I haven’t played casually in years”.
Twilight grimaced and chuckled nervously. She could’ve sworn it was midday moments ago, but it was now dark outside the window. Had Princess Celestia already set the sun?
“Well… see you… tomorrow?”
She closed the door, and hurried to her observation room
Luna couldn’t tell if she had been asleep for six minutes or six hours. But she could tell she was still cranky, which she felt was the perfect mood to confront an evil, murderous speedrunner.
She rested her royal rear on her meditation mat (padded for comfort (the mat, not her)), and cast the spell that would draw her into the Dream Realm. The anomaly was exactly where she left it, but this time a single, thin cable of dream magic trailed out of it. Luna diligently traced to its end, whereupon she found it tethered to a pony’s dream.
She prepared herself for combat, and dived in.
…
She felt very… two-dimensional. More so than usual. There was a very blurry photograph of a high-school classroom behind her. She heard soft and nonintrusive music. And there was the unicorn.
“Halt! Foul crea–” “How dare–” “the Princess–”
Oh no, he was already skipping her dialogue. She would need every ounce of her strength to hold on.
“Oh? You–” “the Magic of Frie–” “Then prove it!–”
PonyRunner’s hands flew across the keyboard. He was menuing harder than he’d ever menued in his life.
Luna felt she had known this stallion all her life. His tragic past in the orphanage, his struggle with mental illness, his triumphs, his marriage, his desolation at her death, the loneliness in being separated from his family…
She pitied the poor creature.
No, not just pitied. Something else. Something more.
He hoofed her a 15th pineapple.
It was love. Definitely love.
“Now, you may be asking”, said PonyRunner, “how did we get real pineapples into the dream realm? The answer is: very carefully”.
“Let’s just call it lucid dreaming”, said the Dash Guy. Wow, that was actually funny! He was improving!
“I was wrong–” “I hope you don’t thi–” “I will–” “Farewell for now–”
“And with that, we’ve reached Heart Level 6. We are officially dating Princess Luna!”, declared PonyRunner to thunderous applause.
A brief fade to black, and a was once again wide awake.
“We’re now in the endgame. Canterlot is open, and the only thing between us and killing Celestia is pure execution. No waiting, no plot, just action.
“But first, remember that party Pinkie was throwing for us? We need to skip it.”
PonyRunner dodge rolled out of bed and grabbed the bucket.
“This is called Clinical Depression Skip. Don’t ask what happens at the party casually”.
He held the bucket against the wall and simply walked straight through it.
“Walls don’t actually exist if you have a bucket. Don’t believe Big Wall’s lies”.
He remained clipped halfway through the wall, and began to carefully trot along the edge of the room, along the edge of the hallway outside.
“There are trigger volumes everywhere. Someone really did not want you missing this party. If we step too far out of the room, Pinkie will lock us into the same following state AJ did earlier. There’s no escape.
“There are trigger volumes outside the window, in the ceiling, and the party is directly below us. It covers the entire corridor outside too. But, because the crystal castle’s walls are thicker than normal, we can seamwalk along the edge where it touches inbounds without hitting any of them.
“You can actually see four different Pinkies waiting for us outside”, he pointed at his screen, as if anyone else could see it.
The audience laughed. There were, indeed, four Pinkies, all t-posing – which looked very odd on a pony – below him, above him, in the corridor, and standing dangerously atop some sort of flying contraption outside the window. Every inch of the castle had been covered in banners, each with a single, solitary letter: ‘a’.
PonyRunner trotted his character across the walls of the adjoining rooms, until he came to the end of the corridor.
“We’ve dodged the hallway trigger, but going down the stairs triggers the party. So we’re going to use the stairs in a slightly different way–”
He dropped a pineapple at his hooves, stood on it, and picked it up in his magic. Both fruit and pony began to vibrate, and suddenly fell through the floor.
“Don’t ask why that happens. No-one knows”.
Tropical Slice was distraught at the prospect of bankruptcy. The yellow unicorn had fallen out of the sky for a second time, this time demanding a refund for his 15 bits. The pineapples he returned were beginning to rot. She took the lot of them anyway, on the verge of tears.
“Since we didn’t have an inventory last time, we couldn’t carry any money. But we do still have pineapples, so we can trade the rest of them back for the money for a train ticket.”
“I believe in full game runs”, said Gage, “the best money-maker is washing windows, right?”
Dash Guy nodded.
“Yeah, you do some RNG manipulation, otherwise there’s a random event where you get accused of being an alien spy by the Mane Six. You have to run away for a bit, and then you get caught and interrogated. It’s like a two minute time waste.”
One more launch, and he was already at the train platform. He mashed through the ticket buying menu, bought a ticket to Canterlot with bits to spare, and boarded the Friendship Express.
“Welcome to the train, don’t blink or you’ll miss it–”
Out of his saddle bags, he dropped his last pineapple.
He opened the window, jumped out, turned, fired. With years of practice it had become almost second nature.
The pineapple connected, launching him back towards the train, and onto it’s roof. From up here, it was obvious that the train was stationary; the Equestrian countryside was the thing in motion, looping and loading in and out as needed.
“It’s been a long time, but there’s a sidequest here with Ditzy? Or Derpy? Whatever her name is. The one with the eyes. The train gets stopped and attacked by a bird and a cat I think? Or demons? We’ll never know, because the Canterlot loading zone is just sitting there at the front of the train”.
A gallop, a jump, and he was through. Suddenly back in-bounds, he stepped off the train, and into Canterlot.
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Some parts of this cause me physical pain. Also LUNA NOOOOOO, DON'T LET YOURSELF BE MANIPULATED LIKE THAT!
11476603
her lust for pineapples is too strong
Rarity accidentally saving the run, despite not knowing what a speedrun is was highly amusing. As is the rest of the fic.
Oh, right, double update. Ahem.
Ha!
Oh dear. The realities are bleeding into one another more than I thought.
Phrasing?
Alas, Luna was seduced by the siren song of tropical produce. I just hope PonyRunner doesn't extinguish his own sun when he finishes the run.
Breaking reality is a small price to pay for the WR.
Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.
They still have their Kamui powers, even in Equestria.
Yeah, their depravity is out of bounds.
Oh boy. If even Luna can't fight it, this is gonna end badly.
11476603
Listen bro +15 friendship points is +15 friendship points
Celestia's about to kick the bucket, baby!
When your done killing Celestia may we have any% Luna's marriage? I know the side quests are a little long and the skips a little hard but I'd love to see it.
11476719
This reminds me of Luna using "The Friendship points generator" to give herself 999999999999 friendship points in MLP in Real Life.
11476801
Fun fact: you can actually use that bucket's post-kick momentum to wallclip out of bounds. Granted, it softlocks the penultimate cutscene and kills the run, but the tragic, choir-laden soundtrack endlessly looping over a still shot of nothing in particular is pretty darn funny IMO.
Some of 'em speedrunning glitch references, especially the HL ones, physically killed me.
Was reading this at night, couldn't laugh out loud...
Oh, also, the only sad thing about this is that it ends too fast. We need a longer route.
This has been a wild ride so far. Very curious to see how it ends.
I'm gonna be sad when this ends
Fine job with all the twists. Was not expecting Gamer Luna and the ponies breaking the 4th wall in return.
Okay, this is kinda terrifying.
derpicdn.net/img/2020/1/23/2254388/large.png
I feel like we desperately need an MLG quick scope music video to end this run somehow
"oh no a castle wall!, well actually we're going to propsurf over the wall directly into the throneroom."
Is this a quote from an actual commentary from an actual speedrun of a buggy game? It seems familiar.
Best line.
This line nearly made me crack in laughter at work. Well done!
Either PonyRunner succeeds in killing Celestia, or Luna has a trick up her sleeve.
And that possibility is making me anxious.
11477365
Simple: if she kills Celestia, the runner can't! A flawless plan! Then she can go make out with her new coltfriend.
Is the bucket a reference to: "Stanley's Parable: Ultra Deluxe" ?
11477240
I had GDQ on in the background while writing this, and someone literally said this line and I knew I had to immediately put it in the fic. I think it was either the Portal Airboat% run or the Bioshock run after it? I can’t remember. Also it’s literally a glitch from Skyrim any% so maybe you’re thinking of that.
11477381
But what if that's the key to kill Celestia?
11476851
Celestia getting assassinated, obviously.
11477437
I even spread the word to my german friend(who is asleep rn) but i gotta admit, you created something unexpected so far AND IT'S GDQ BASED!!! Even more funny is that you burned so much 4thwallbreaking into the story that you forgot to do this to Myself and every other reader aswell, there isn't a 4th wall break towards any of us but just between the speedrunners and everypone in Equestria so far. INSANEEEEEEEEEEE
My Friend ramdom_player201 who commented just before you posted your story on his discord server and i instantly leaped at it, IT'S GLORIOUS!!!
11477431
I think the bucket was a reference to a trick in skyrim which allows players to clip through walls.
11477458
...maybe, but it might not be as simple as that. Who invited Rainbowdashfan266 to be a commentator and why is he there?
Edit: Or not. Though the ending does leave some unanswered questions.
This might need a sequel.
11476634
Sells clothes, drops huge donos, saves incentives at the last second... she’s The RariYetee
When the game magic wears off, Luna is going to feel so bad... And Pinkie might just rip him a new one.
Luna may be the princess of the night, but she is no match for the power of the pineapples! 🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍
11477601
Exactly like a Half Life 2 clip too.
I'm Deceased xD